BACHELOR.—Nor, to tell you the truth, do I myself—stay—let me consider a little—Oh!—a savage?—Why—a savage is—what we call a savage, is a man of a morose, unsociable disposition, who flies all company.
SAVAGE.—I have told you already that we live together in families.
BACHELOR.—We also give the name of savage to those beasts who are not tamed, but roam wild about the forests; and from hence we have transferred that appellation to men who inhabit the woods.
SAVAGE.—I go into the woods sometimes, as well as you do, to hunt.
BACHELOR.—Pray, now, do you think sometimes?
SAVAGE.—It is impossible to be without some sort of ideas.
BACHELOR.—I have a great curiosity to know what your ideas are. What think you of man?
SAVAGE.—Think of him! Why, that he is a two-footed animal, who has the faculty of reasoning, speaking, and who uses his hands much more dexterously than the monkey. I have seen several kinds of men, some white, like you, others copper-colored, like me, and others black, like those that wait upon the governor of Cayenne. You have a beard, we have none; the negroes have wool, you and I have hair. They say, that in your more northerly climates the inhabitants have white hair, whereas that of the Americans is black. This is all I know about man.
BACHELOR.—But your soul, my dear sir? your soul? what notion have you of that? whence comes it? what is it? what does it do? how does it act? where does it go?
SAVAGE.—I know nothing about all this, indeed; for I never saw the soul.