Of the question relating to the State of Nature.

NATURAL productions are generally formed

by degrees. Vegetables are raifed from a tender fhoot, and animals from an infant ftate. The latter being active, extend together their operations and their powers, and have a progress in what they perform, as well as in the faculties they acquire. This progrefs in the cafe of man is

B

continued to a greater extent than in that of any other animal. Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the fpecies itfelf from rudeness to civilization. Hence the fuppofed departure of mankind from the ftate 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 hiftorian, and the moralift, frequently allude to this ancient time; and under the emblems of gold, or of iron, reprefent a condition, and a manner of life, from which mankind have either degenerated, or on which they have greatly improved. On either fuppofition, the firft ftate of our nature must have borne no refemblance 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 encroachments which fraud, oppreffion, or a bufy 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 diftinguish, 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 poffelfed 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 poffef

fing any of the apprehenfions and paffions which the voice and the gefture are fo well fitted to exprefs. Others have made the ftate of nature to confift in perpetual wars kindled by competition for dominion and intereft, where every individual had a feparate quarrel with his kind, and where the prefence of a fellow-creature was the fignal of battle.

THE defire of laying the foundation of a favourite fyftem, or a fond expectation, perhaps, that we may be able to penetrate the fecrets of nature, to the very fource 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 ftate of nature, we overlook what he has always appeared within the reach of our own obfervation, and in the records of history.

IN In every other inftance, however, the natural hiftorian thinks himfelf obliged to collect facts, not to offer conjectures. When he treats of any particular fpecies of animals, he fuppofes, 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 firft deftination. He admits, that his knowledge of the material fyftem of the world confifts in a collection of facts or at most, in general tenets derived from particular obfervations and experiments. It is only in

what relates to himself, and in matters the most im portant, and the most easily known, that he sub. ftitutes hypothefis instead of reality, and confounds the provinces of imagination and reason, of poetry and science.

BUT without entering any further on questions either in moral or phyfical fubjects, relating to the manner or to the origin of our knowledge; without any difparagement to that fubtilty which would analyze every sentiment, and trace every mode of being to its fource; it may be fafely affirmed, That the character of man, as he now exists, that the laws of his animal and intellectual system, on which his happiness now depends, deferve our principal study; and that general principles relating to this or any other subject, are useful only fo far as they are founded on just observation, and lead to the knowledge of important confequences, or fo far as they enable us to act with fuccefs when we would apply either the intellectual or the physical powers of nature, to the purposes of human life.

IF both the earliest and the latest accounts collected from every quarter of the earth, represent mankind as affembled in troops and companies; and the individual always joined by affection to party, while he is poffibly opposed to another; employed in the exercise of recollection and forefight; inclined to communicate his own fentiments, and to be made acquainted with thofe of others; thefe facts must be admitted as the foundation of all our reasoning relative to man, His mixed difpofition to friendship or enmity, his reafon, his

fe of language and articulate founds, like the fhape and the erect pofition of his body, are to be confidered as so many attributes of his nature: they are to be retained in his description, as the wing and the paw are in that of the eagle and the lion, and as different degrees of fierceness, vigilance, timidity, or fpeed, have a place in the natural history of different animals.

IF the question be put, What the mind of man could perform, when left to itself, and without the aid of any foreign direction? we are to look for our anfwer in the hiftory of mankind. Particular experiments which have been found fo ufeful in establishing the principles of other fciences, could probably, on this fubject, teach us nothing important, or new: We are to take the history of every active being from his conduct in the fituation to which he is formed, not from his appearance in any forced or uncommon condition; a wild man therefore, caught in the woods, where he had always lived apart from his fpecies, is a fingular instance, not a fpecimen of any general character. As the anatomy of the eye which had never received the impreffions of light, or that of an ear which had never felt the impulfe of founds, would probably exhibit defects in the very ftructure of the organs themfelves, arifing from their not being applied to their proper functions; fo any particular cafe of this fort would only fhew in what degree the powers of apprehenfion and sentiment could exist where they had not been employed, and what would be the