SAVAGE.—No; but have I not frequently heard it said that in your continent you have Arabians and Scythians who never knew anything of these matters, and yet form considerable nations? Now we live like these people; neighboring families assist each other. We inhabit a warm climate, and so have very few necessities; we can easily procure ourselves food; we marry; we get children; we bring them up, and then we die. You see this is just the same as among you; some few ceremonies excepted. BACHELOR.—Why, my good sir, then you are not a savage? SAVAGE.—I do not know what you mean by that word. BACHELOR.—Nor, to tell you the truth, do I myself—stay—let me consider a little—Oh!—a savage?—Why—a savage is—what we call a savage, is a man of a morose, unsociable disposition, who flies all company. SAVAGE.—I have told you already that we live together in families. BACHELOR.—We also give the name of savage to those beasts who are not tamed, but roam wild about the forests; and from hence we have transferred that appellation to men who inhabit the woods. SAVAGE.—I go into the woods sometimes, as well as you do, to hunt. BACHELOR.—Pray, now, do you think sometimes? SAVAGE.—It is impossible to be without some sort of ideas. BACHELOR.—I have a great curiosity to know what your ideas are. What think you of man? SAVAGE.—Think of him! Why, that he is a two-footed animal, who has the faculty of reasoning, speaking, and who uses his hands much more dexterously than the monkey. I have seen several kinds of men, some white, like you, others copper-colored, like me, and others black, like those that wait upon the governor of Cayenne. You have a beard, we have none; the negroes have wool, you and I have hair. They say, that in your more northerly climates the inhabitants have white hair, whereas that of the Americans is black. This is all I know about man. BACHELOR.—But your soul, my dear sir? your soul? what notion have you of that? whence comes it? what is it? what does it do? how does it act? where does it go? SAVAGE.—I know nothing about all this, indeed; for I never saw the soul. BACHELOR.—Apropos; do you think that brutes are machines? SAVAGE.—They appear to me to be organized machines, that have sentiment and memory. BACHELOR.—Well; and pray now, Mr. Savage, what do you think that you, you yourself, I say, possess above those brutes? SAVAGE.—The gifts of an infinitely superior memory, a much greater share of ideas, and, as I have already told you, a tongue capable of forming many more sounds than those of brutes; with hands more ready at executing; and the faculty of laughing, which a long-winded argumentator always makes me exercise. BACHELOR.—But tell me, if you please, how came you by all this? What is the nature of your mind? How does your soul animate your body? Do you always think? Is your will free?