The strength of a man may be still further estimated by agility and the continuance of his labour. Men accustomed to running outstrip horses, or at least continue their speed for a greater length of time. A man will walk down a horse if they continue together, and perform a long journey much sooner, and with less fatigue. The royal messengers of Ispahan, who are runners by profession, go 36 leagues in 14 or 15 hours. Travellers assure us, that the Hottentots out-run lions in the chace, and that the savages, who live by hunting, pursue the elk and other animals with such speed as to take them. Many other surprising things are told of the nimbleness of savages, and of the long journeys they accomplish on foot, over the most craggy mountains, and the most unfavourable roads, where there is no path to direct, and every obstacle to oppose. A thousand leagues are these people said to travel in less than six weeks, or two months. Birds excepted, whose muscles are indeed stronger in proportion than those of any other animal, no other creature could support such a continuance of fatigue. The civilized man is ignorant of his own strength; nor is he sensible how much he loses of it by effeminacy, and how he might add to it by the habit of vigorous exercise.
Sometimes we find men of extraordinary strength; but this gift of Nature, which would be valuable to them in a primitive state, is of very trifling service with the polished part of mankind, among whom mental perfections are held in higher estimation than bodily, and manual exertions are confined to persons of the lowest classes.
Men are much stronger than women; and this superiority they have too often employed, by tyrannically enslaving a sex, which was formed to partake with them the pleasures as well as the pains of life. Savage nations subject their women to a continued series of labour. On them is imposed every office of drudgery, while the husband indolently reclines in his hammock. From this inactive situation he is seldom roused but by the calls of hunger, when he is obliged to seek food by fishing or hunting. A savage has no idea of taking pleasure in exercise; and nothing surprises him more than to see an European walk backwards and forward, merely for his amusement or recreation. All men have a tendency to laziness; but the savages of hot countries are not only lazy to an extreme, but tyrannical to their women, beyond any other classes of men. In civilized countries men dictate laws to women, which are the more severe, as their manners are rough and untaught, and it is only among nations highly polished that women are raised to that equality of condition which is naturally their due, and so necessary to the true enjoyment of society. These refinements flow from themselves; and to strength they oppose arms more sure to conquer, when by modesty they teach us to pay homage to the empire of beauty; a natural advantage, superior to strength. But much skill is requisite to manage and increase its influence, as is evident from the different ideas which different nations entertain of beauty. These indeed are so widely opposite, so palpably contradictory, that there is every reason to suppose the sex have gained more by rendering themselves amiable, than even by this gift of Nature, about which men are so much divided. As from the difficulty of obtaining it, the value of a thing still increases, so beauty has always had its admirers, and its votaries, respect necessarily increased as soon as the possessors of it maintained a becoming dignity, and turned a deaf ear to every address of which virtue was not the positive basis; this naturally introduced a delicacy of sentiment, and polished manners followed of course.