stronger impressions of the event, curiosity of the same kind may
naturally dispose us to view that country whence our religion had
its beginning, and I believe no man surveys those awful scenes
without some confirmation of holy resolutions. That the Supreme
Being may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another
is the dream of idle superstition, but that some places may operate
upon our own minds in an uncommon manner is an opinion which hourly
experience will justify. He who supposes that his vices may be
more successfully combated in Palestine, will perhaps find himself
mistaken; yet he may go thither without folly; he who thinks they
will be more freely pardoned, dishonours at once his reason and
religion."

"These," said the Prince, "are European distinctions. I will
consider them another time. What have you found to be the effect
of knowledge? Are those nations happier than we?"

"There is so much infelicity," said the poet, "in the world, that
scarce any man has leisure from his own distresses to estimate the
comparative happiness of others. Knowledge is certainly one of the
means of pleasure, as is confessed by the natural desire which
every mind feels of increasing its ideas. Ignorance is mere
privation, by which nothing can be produced; it is a vacuity in
which the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction,
and, without knowing why, we always rejoice when we learn, and
grieve when we forget. I am therefore inclined to conclude that if
nothing counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow
more happy as out minds take a wider range.

"In enumerating the particular comforts of life, we shall find many