physician, he will have to be very cautious, else it might paralyse him in all critical moments, cramp his knowledge wind unnerve his helpful, delicate hand.
135
Being pitied—Savages feel with a moral shudder when thinking of the possibility of becoming an object of pity, which is the same to them as being bare of all virtue. To bestow pity is tantamount to contempt, they do not want to see a contemptible being suffer, this affords no enjoyment. On the contrary, to see a foe suffer, who was acknowledged their peer in pride and who does not renounce his pride even amid tortures, and any being that refuses to stoop to appeals of mercy, in other words, to the most shameful and degrading abasement, is the enjoyment of enjoyments, which, in the soul of the savage, excites admiration. He finally kills such a brave, where it is in his power, and grants funeral honours to him, the dauntless one: had he wailed, had his countenance lost the expression of cold defiance, had he shown himself contemptible, well, he would have been allowed to live like a dog, he would no longer have stirred the pride of the spectator, and pity would have stepped in the place of admiration.
136
Happiness in pity.—If, with the Indians, the knowledge of human misery be looked upon as the goal of
