GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
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lie torpid in our nature, like life in an embrio, during the whole of our existence? This surely must appear extravagant and absurd in the highest degree, especially as it must be allowed, that although commerce and arts in some instances expose life, in others they preserve it; they supply the wants of Nature, without rapine and violence, and by producing a common interest, they prevent the inhabitants of the same country from being divided into different clans, which among savages are almost perpetually committing hostilities against each other, with a ferocious cruelty which is not to be found where civil government and literary knowlege have meliorated the manners of mankind. Upon the whole, therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude, that the increase of knowlege and commerce are ultimately common benefits; and that the loss of life which happens in the attempt, is among the partial evils which terminate in general good.
I have now only to request of such of my Readers as may be disposed to censure me for not having attributed any of the critical escapes from danger that I have recorded, to the particular interposition of Providence, that they would, in this particular, allow me the right of private judgment, which I claim with the greater confidence, as the very same principle which would have determined them to have done it, has determined me to the contrary. As I firmly believe the divine precept delivered by the Author of Christianity, "there is not a sparrow falls to the ground without my Father," and cannot admit the agency of chance in the government of the world, I must necessarily refer every event to one cause, as well the danger as the escape, as well the sufferings as the enjoyments of life: and for this opinion, I have, among other respectable authorities, that of the Bible. Shall we, says Job, "receive good from the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?" The Supreme Being is equally wise and benevolent
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page xix, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
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