I fhall here fubjoin a table of the fuperficial content of the feveral parts of the globe in fquare miles, accounting 60 miles to a degree on the equator.

There are alfo feveral other confiderable iflands, chiefly in the South Seas, the exact dimenfions of which are not certainly known, but they may be ranged according to their magnitude in the following order: New Holland being pearly equal in fize to the whole continent of Europe.

New

MANKIND were no fooner united into civil focieties, than they discovered an inclination to oppress each other. That fyftem of equality, in which they were left by nature, gave the strongest, and the most crafty, the advantage over his weaker and undefigning neighbours. From hence arose the neceffity of forming conjunctions of feveral individuals, or families together, who fhould implicitly follow the dictates or commands of some chosen superior, or leader. And, to prevent the altercations, ftrife, and confequently bloodshed, that inevitably followed the nomination of every new leader, or prince, they caufed the office to be made hereditary. Confequently, abfolute and hereditary monarchy was the firft priginal form of government; as appears from facred writ; where Nimrod is represented by his courage and dexterity to have acquired a fuperiority of fame and power above his contemporaries; and he founded, at Babylon, the first monarchy whofe origin is mentioned in hiftory.

In the year 1496 before Chrift, the Greeks were the first people who, by the advice and public-fpirited endeavours of Cecrops, and Cranaus his fucceffor, formed a regular council. For Amphictyon, one of thofe difinterested cha

racters

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racters who live for the good of the community of which he is a member, endeavored to find an expediers to unite the feveral independent kingdoms of Greece into one body; and thus to put a stop to thofe fatal confequences of inteftine divifion, and civil difcord, which rendered them a prey to each other, and an eafy conqueft to the invader. He, therefore, engaged the kings, or leaders, of twelve different cities, to unite together for their mutual fecurity and welfare. Two deputies from each city affembled twice a year at Thermopylæ, and formed the Amphictyonic Council. In this affembly the general-interefts of the ftates were difcuffed. Amphictyon, in order to render those feveral connexions more durable, connected them with religious charge, intrusting the care of the temple at Delphi, with the riches that accrued to this place from those who confulted the oracles, to the care alfo of thefe deputies. This affembly was the firft political eftablishment of a piurality of power, that we have any authentic account of in hiftory; and gave an energy of action to Greece, which enabled them to defend their liberty and independence against the great force of the Perfians.

This was the first deviation from abfolute monarchy, recorded in profane hiftory; from that time, various have been the modes and forms of government in different nations; though, if we except fome part of the Roman history, Greece, and a few nations of lefs note, the monarchical form of government was the most prevailing for the next two thousand years.

Athens is an inftance of the pernicious effects of division in a ftate; and alfo difplays the benefits of unanimity. Thefeus, king of Attica, about the year before Chrift 1234, perceiving the danger to which his country was expofed by this twelvefald divifion, endeavoured to form a conjunction of the states; for this purpose he detached the leaders of the different tribes as much as poffible from the people they governed; he abolifhed the different courts eftablished in different parts of