flow, the scenes of human affairs perpetually change in his management: his emblem is a paffing stream, not a ftagnating pool. We may defire to direct his love of improvement to its proper object, we may wifh for ftability of conduct; but we mistake human nature, if we wish for a termination of labour, or a fcene of repose.

THE Occupations of men, in every condition, befpeak their freedom of choice, their various opinions, and the multiplicity of wants by which they are urged: but they enjoy, or endure, with a fenfibility, or a phlegm, which are nearly the fame in every fituation. They poffefs the fhores of the Cafpian, or the Atlantic, by a different tenure, but with equal ease. On the one they are fixed to the foil, and and feem to be formed for fettlement, and the accommodation of cities: the names they bestow on a nation, and on its territory, are the fame. On the other they are mere animals of paffage, prepared to roam on the face of the earth, and with their herds, in search of new pasture and favourable feasons, to follow the fun in his annual course.

MAN finds his lodgement alike in the cave, the cottage, and the palace; and his fubfiftence equally in the woods, in the dairy, or the farm. He affumes the diftinction of titles, equipage, and drefs; he devifes regular fyftems of government, and a complicated body of laws; or naked in the woods has no badge of fuperiority but the strength of his limbs and the fagacity of his mind; no rule of conduct but choice; no tie

with his fellow creatures but affection, the love of company, and the defire of fafety. Capable of a great variety of arts, yet dependent on none in particular for the preservation of his being; to whatever length he has carried his artifice, there he feems to enjoy the conveniences that fuit his nature, and to have found the condition to which he is deftined. The tree which an American, on the banks of the Oroonoko*, has chofen to climb for the retreat, and the lodgement of his family', is to him a convenient dwelling. The fopha, the vaulted dome, and the colonade, do not more effectually content their native inhabitant.

If we are asked therefore, Where the state of nature is to be found? we may answer, It is here; and it matters not whether we are understood to fpeak in the island of Great Britain, at the Cape of Good Hope, or the Straits of Magellan. While this active being is in the train of employing his talents, and of operating on the fubjects around him, all fituations are equally natural. If we are told, That vice, at least, is contrary to nature; we may anfwer, It is worfe; it is folly and wretchednefs. But if nature is only opposed to art, in what fituation of the human race are the footsteps of art unknown? In the condition of the favage, as well as in that of the citizen, are many proofs of human invention; and in either is not in any permanent station, but a mere stage through which this travelling being is deftined to

*Lafitau mœurs des fauvages.

pafs. If the palace be unnatural, the cottage is fo no lefs; and the highest refinements of political and moral apprehenfion, are not more artificial in their kind, than the first operations of fentiment and reafon.

If we admit that man is fufceptible of improvement, and has in himself a principle of progreffion, and a defire of perfection, it appears improper to fay, that he has quitted the state of his nature, when he has begun to proceed; or that he finds a station for which he was not intended, while, like other animals, he only follows the difpofition, and employs the powers that nature has given.

THE latest efforts of human invention are but a continuation of certain devices which were practifed in the earlieft ages of the world, and in the rudest state of mankind. What the favage projects, or obferves, in the forest, are the fteps which led nations, more advanced, from the architecture of the cottage to that of the palace, and conducted the human mind from the perceptions of fenfe, to the general conclufions of science.

ACKNOWLEDGED defects are to man in every condition matter of diflike. Ignorance and imbecility are objects of contempt: penetration and conduct give eminence, and procure efteem. Whither fhould his feelings and apprehenfions on thefe fubjects lead him? To a progress, no doubt, in which the favage, as well as the philofopher, is engaged; in which they have made different advances, but in which their ends are the fame, The admiration which Cicero enter

tained for literature, eloquence,and civil accomplishments, was not more real than that of a Scythian for fuch a measure of fimilar endowments as his own apprehenfion could reach. "Were I to boast," fays a Tartar prince *, "it would be of "that wifdom I have received from God. For CC as, on the one hand, I yield to none in the con"duct of war, in the difpofition of armies, whether ❝ of horse or of foot, and in directing the movements of great or small bodies; fo, on the other, "I have my talent in writing, inferior perhaps "only to those who inhabit the great cities of "Perfia or India. Of other nations, unknown to "me, I do not speak."

СС

MAN may mistake the objects of his purfuit; he may mifapply, his industry and mifplace his improvements. If under a fenfe of fuch poffible errors, he would find a standard by which to judge of his own proceedings, and arrive at the best ftate of his nature, he cannot find it perhaps in the prac tice of any individual, or of any nation whatever; not even in the fenfe of the majority, or the prevailing opinion of his kind. He muft look for it in the best conceptions of his understanding, in the best movements of his heart; he muft thence difcover what is the perfection and the happinefs of which he is capable. He will find, on the fcrutiny, that the proper ftate of his nature, taken in this fenfe, is not a condition from which mankind are for ever removed, but one to which they may now

* Abulgaze Bahadur Chan. Hiftory of the Tartars.

attain; not prior to the exercife of their faculties, but procured by their just application.

Of all the terms that we employ in treating of human affairs, those of natural and unnatural are the leaft determinate in their meaning. Oppofed to affectation, frowardness, or any other defect of the temper or character, the natural is an epithet of praise; but employed to fpecify a conduct which proceeds from the nature of man, can ferve to dif tinguish nothing: for all the actions of men are equally the refult of their nature. At moft. this language can only refer to the general and prevailing fenfe or practice of mankind; and the purpofe of every important inquiry on this fubject may be ferved by the ufe of a language equally familiar and more precife. What is juft, or unjuft? What is happy or wretched, in the manners of men ?What in their various fituations, is favourable or adverse to their amiable qualities; are questions to which we may expect a fatisfactory anfwer; and whatever may have been the original ftate of our fpecies it is of more importance to know the condition to which we ourselves should aspire, than that which our ancestors may be fuppofed to have left.

SECT. II.

Of the Principles of Self-prefervation.

IF in human nature there are qualities by which it is diftinguifted from every other part of the