Of Corruption, as it tends to Political Slavery,

401

SECT. VI.

Of the Progrefs and Termination of Defpotifm,

419.

Of the question relating to the State of Nature.

ATURAL productions are generally formed by
degrees. Vegetables are raised from a tender
fhoot, and animals from an infant ftate. The

latter being deftined to act, extend their ope-
rations as their powers increase: they exhibit a progress
in what they perform, as well as in the faculties they
acquire. This progrefs in the cafe of man is continued

to a greater extent than in that of any other animal. Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the fpecies itself from rudeness to civilization. Hence the fuppofed departure of mankind from the state of their nature; hence our conjectures and different opinions of what man must have been in the first age of his being. The poet, the historian, and the moralist, frequently allude to this ancient time; and under the emblems of gold, or of iron, represent a condition, and a manner of life, from which mankind have either degenerated, or on which they have greatly improved. On either fuppofition, the first state of our nature must have borne no resemblance to what men have exhibited in any fubfequent period; hiftorical monuments, even of the earlieft date, are to be confidered as novelties; and the most common establishments of human fociety are to be claffed among the incroachments which fraud, oppreffion, or a busy invention have made upon the reign of nature, by which the chief of our grievances or bleffings were equally with.. held.

AMONG the writers who have attempted to distinguish, in the human character, its original qualities, and to point out the limits between nature and art, fome have reprefented mankind in their first condition, as poffeffed of mere animal fenfibility, without any exercife of the faculties that render them fuperior to the brutes, without any political union, without any means of explaining their fentiments, and even without poffeffing any of the apprehenfions and paffions which the voice and the gef

ture are so well fitted to exprefs. Others have made the state of nature to confift in perpetual wars, kindled by competition for dominion and intereft, where every individual had a separate quarrel with his kind, and where the presence of a fellow-creature was the fignal of

battle.

THE defire of laying the foundation of a favourite system, or a fond expectation, perhaps, that we may be able to penetrate the fecrets of nature, to the very source of existence, have, on this fubject, led to many fruitless inquiries, and given rife to many wild fuppofitions. Among the various qualities which mankind poffefs, we select one or a few particulars on which to establish a theory, and in framing our account of what man was in fome imaginary state of nature, we overlook what he has always appeared with in the reach of our own obfervation, and in the records of history.

IN every other inftance, however, the natural hiftorian thinks himself obliged to collect facts, not to offer conjectures. When he treats of any particular species of animals, he supposes, that their prefent difpofitions and inftincts are the fame which they originally had, and that their prefent manner of life is a continuance of their first destination. He admits, that his knowledge of the mateial fyftem of the world confifts in a collection of facts, or at moft, in general tenets derived from particular observations and experiments. It is only in what relates to himfelf, and in matters the most important, and the most easily known,

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