The commanding influence of a system so flattering to the pride of its professors, and operating so powerfully on their hopes and fears as Mohammedism, aided by the dread of present suffering, has so far counteracted the strong impulse of avarice, that _gaming_ is in a great degree banished from society in the East. All the evils and inconveniences therefore of that practice, so severely felt throughout Europe, are almost unknown in the Turkish empire. If activity and a careful provision for the future, and that each should contribute his efforts to the good of the whole, be necessary to constitute the happiness of a people, how happens it that the Orientals, among whom these requisites are wanting, should yet be happy? The system of morals contained in the writings of the Orientals, is at once sublime without being impracticable, and levelled to the use of mankind, without being loose or low. Yet it is usual with us to talk of their brutal stupidity! But this system is not practised among them—and is the Christian system of morals practised among Christian nations? The Arabian and Persian histories and romances abound with traits of magnanimity, of generosity, justice, and courage, no way inferior to, but in some instances exceeding those of other nations. The Greeks and ourselves have indeed stigmatised them with the name of barbarians; but impartial inquiry proves that they are susceptible of all that is admired in a polished people; that crimes are treated among them as among other nations, and that though their passions may be expressed in a different way, they have always the same source and the same object. No man who reflects on his past enjoyments and sufferings can doubt but that the latter, by their intenseness, duration, and frequency, have been decidedly predominant. To render them more equal, that is, to be less miserable, or to make life tolerable, either the number of pleasures must be augmented, according to the system of the Epicureans, or that of pains must be diminished, according to that of the Stoics. The Orientals strive to attain the one object like ourselves, by sensuality; and here it is not to be conceived that they are happier than we are; but the other they gain in a much more complete degree than ourselves, and are much more exercised in the stoical system, which seems the most effectual to the purpose. The passions, indeed, it is said, are to the mind what motion is to the body; and the absence of either causes and marks, in each respectively, symptoms that may be termed morbid.