Читать книгу Art in Theory - Группа авторов - Страница 150

1 1 I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity, tho’ low people, without education, will start up amongst us and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ’tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.

2 1 Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity … They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people … The American savages, who go naked, and live entirely on the products of the chase, have been always impossible to subdue. What yoke, indeed, can be imposed on men who stand in need of nothing?

3 2 I dare not speak of those happy nations, who did not even know the name of many vices, which we find it difficult to suppress; the savages of America, whose simple and natural mode of government Montaigne preferred, without hesitation, not only to the laws of Plato, but to the most perfect visions of government philosophy can ever suggest.

4 1 Lake Moeris, a vast natural phenomenon that Egyptian hydraulic engineering greatly improved on, was long considered to be entirely man made. [Translator’s note.]

5 1 The ‘you’ who is addressed in the opening passages was Voltaire’s deceased partner, Emilie du Châtelet, who seems to have functioned for him as an ideal reader. [Editors’ note.]

6 1 Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (History of Ancient Art), Part 1, Chapter 1.4. [Translator’s note.] (cf. IIC7)

7 1 Quatremère seems to suggest that the modillion‐like effects produced by the ends of supporting timbers in Chinese roofs imitate regular patterns cut from cloth and suspended along a tent roof. [Translator’s note.]

8 1 It would be an easy, though tedious, task to produce the authorities of poets, philosophers, and historians. I shall therefore content myself with appealing to the decisive and authentic testimony of Diodorus Siculus. The Ichthyophagi, who in his time wandered along the shores of the Red Sea, can only be compared to the natives of New Holland. Fancy, or perhaps reason, may still suppose an extreme and absolute state of nature far below the level of these savages, who had acquired some arts and instruments.