ABSTRACT

These considerations are addressed to Captain BAUDIN, correspondent of the society, about to leave for his expedition of discovery, and to the various observers accompanying him; they are addressed also to Citizen LEVAILLANT, who is going to attempt a third expedition in the interior of Africa. Since it is possible that both have occasion to encounter peoples at very different degrees of civilization or barbarity, it seems the right course to provide for any hypothesis, and to make these CONSIDERATIONS so general that they can be applied to any society differing in its moral and political forms from those of Europe. The leading purpose has been to provide a complete framework comprising any point of view from which these societies can be envisaged by the philosopher. It has not been supposed that certain simple questions that can easily be foreseen should be omitted, when they were necessary to the completeness of the whole.