divine actions, because he must be a god who does not become indolent
in that climate, surrounded by the circumstances mentioned. Deprive a
man, then, of his dignity, and you not only deprive him of his moral
strength but you also make him useless even for those who wish to
make use of him. Every creature has its stimulus, its mainspring:
man's is his self-esteem. Take it away from him and he is a corpse,
and he who seeks activity in a corpse will encounter only worms.

Thus is explained how the natives of the present time are no longer
the same as those of the time of the discovery, neither morally
nor physically.

The ancient writers, like Chirino, Morga and Colin, take pleasure
in describing them as well-featured, with good aptitudes for any
thing they take up, keen and susceptible and of resolute will,
very clean and neat in their persons and clothing, and of good
mien and bearing. (Morga). Others delight in minute accounts of
their intelligence and pleasant manners, of their aptitude for
music, the drama, dancing and singing; of the facility with which
they learned, not only Spanish but also Latin, which they acquired
almost by themselves (Colin); others, of their exquisite politeness
in their dealings and in their social life; others, like the first
Augustinians, whose accounts Gaspar de San Augustin copies, found
them more gallant and better mannered than the inhabitants of the
Moluccas. "All live off their husbandry," adds Morga, "their farms,
fisheries and enterprises, for they travel from island to island by
sea and from province to province by land."

In exchange, the writers of the present time, without being better than
those of former times, neither as men nor as historians, without being