Are we then born less blest than other nations, that the divinity should have infused inept minds into our bodies? Have we not hands? Have we not eyes? Have we not the same habit of body that suffices foreign nations for their internal culture? Why have we alone degenerate and rude souls? Why should we alone be left out as unworthy of the glory of human science? By Hercules! we have the same minds; we can do like other folk if only we will it. For nature has given to all mankind the same groundwork and seed of virtues; we are all born to all those things; when the stimulus is applied, all those properties of the soul that have been, as it were, sleeping, shall be awakened.
Peter I of Muscovy (Russia), b. 1672, d. 1725.
