honest man will bear contradiction; because it gives rise to evidence.
Violence is the argument of falsehood; and to impose a creed by
authority is the act and indication of a tyrant.

O Genius, said I, encouraged by these words, since my reason is free, I
strive in vain to entertain the flattering hope with which you endeavor
to console me. The sensible and virtuous soul is easily caught with
dreams of happiness; but a cruel reality constantly awakens it to
suffering and wretchedness. The more I meditate on the nature of man,
the more I examine the present state of societies, the less possible it
appears to realize a world of wisdom and felicity. I cast my eye over
the whole of our hemisphere; I perceive in no place the germ, nor do
I foresee the instinctive energy of a happy revolution. All Asia lies
buried in profound darkness. The Chinese, governed by an insolent
despotism,* by strokes of the bamboo and the cast of lots, restrained
by an immutable code of gestures, and by the radical vices of an
ill-constructed language,** appear to be in their abortive civilization
nothing but a race of automatons. The Indian, borne down by prejudices,
and enchained in the sacred fetters of his castes, vegetates in an
incurable apathy. The Tartar, wandering or fixed, always ignorant and
ferocious, lives in the savageness of his ancestors. The Arab, endowed
with a happy genius, loses its force and the fruits of his virtue in
the anarchy of his tribes and the jealousy of his families. The African,
degraded from the rank of man, seems irrevocably doomed to servitude.
In the North I see nothing but vilified serfs, herds of men with which
landlords stock their estates. Ignorance, tyranny, and wretchedness
have everywhere stupified the nations; and vicious habits, depraving
the natural senses, have destroyed the very instinct of happiness and of
truth.