and the brute.* He might almost as well join the animal and vegetable creation together, and reafon accordingly. If health

The Author of Epiftles Philofophical and Moral, makes the following remark on the above paffage from Rouffeau: "What use is here made of the word Nature! I would afk, If mankind even were in this flate of folitude, how came it about they are united in a focial one? Were they led to it by inclination, or neceffity? If by inclination, nature evidently prefcribed it; if by the neceflities peculiar to their fpecies, a ftate of fociety was not only prefcribed but enforced by nature. Indeed, whoever before doubted of man's being, by nature, a focial animal?" The fame Writer thus replies to this kind of reafoning:

Let rash Polemicks idly prate

Of NATURE and a NATURAL STATE,
The arts of focial life defpife,

And think that brutes are only wife
Pretending better had it been

;

If Kings and Priefts we ne'er had feen;
If lawless, ignorant, and wild,
Man had been left, while yet a child,
With brutes to fhare a common fate,
More bleft than in his prefent ftate.
Go, thou, and act a focial part;
Man's natural ftate's a ftate of art.
'Twas NATURE, when the world was young,
That loos'd our firft, Great Grandfire's tongue;
Taught his wild fons the force of speech,
And gave the human power to teach;
To focial converfe tun'd the ear,
Gave mutual love and mutual fear;
Infpir'd the hero, warm'd the friend,
And bade the ftrong the weak defend.
'Twas NATURE gave Religion's rule,
And bade the wife conduct the fool;
In justice gave the Law, to fave

The weak and honeft from the knave.
'Twas NATURE rais'd our thoughts on high,
In contemplation to the sky;

Taught us to beat the wilds of space,
And worlds on worlds in æther trace;
Planets and Suns unknown explore,
And hence their Maker,. God, adore.
All this you artificial call:

I heed not empty terms at all.
'Twas NATURE Knowlege did impart,
Which time has ripen'd into Art:
But call it Art, or what you will,
'Tis NATURE, HUMAN NATURE ftill.

be

be natural, he dares almost affirm that reflection is unnatural, and a thinking man is a depraved animal.

Would it not be thought very ftrange fhould we take upon us to affirm health and reflection to be incompatible, and that man hath derived the faculty of thinking from the depravity of fociety? Yet our Author's affertion is tantamount to this. We cannot impeach the wisdom of nature fo much, however, as to fuppofe the exertion of our mental faculties. inconfiftent with the corporeal functions of the human frame. The state of nature he defcribes, is, therefore, a state of brutality; the ftate of the animal before the diftinguishing faculties of the man had time and opportunity to expand themfelves, and difplay a fuperior being, formed for reЯection and fociety. Indeed our Author pretends that man has no inftinct peculiar to his fpecies; that he has no natural curiofity; that the progress of his reafon is owing entirely to his paffions, and that he covets knowlege only because he covets enjoyment. It is impoffible to conceive, he fays, why a man, exempt from fears and defires, fhould take the trouble to reafon. Perhaps fo; but is it not equally impoffible for us to conceive why many other things are done, that we daily fee actually are done, from the effect of inftinct? We do not fuppofe, however, that man reafons immediately from inftinct: but may he not covet knowlege from inftinct? And may not that paffion be as effential to man as any other? In which cafe he will receive pleasure even in the mere gratification of it; and as the exertion of the rational faculties furnishes the means of fuch gratification, he will naturally be induced to exert them. The immoderate gratification of this paffion may, like that of all others, be prejudicial to health, as long application and intenfe ftudy are known to be; but it is certainly more noble to facrifice the animal to the man, than, as our Author feems to advise, the man to the animal. best Writers on the fubject are now pretty generally agreed, as to the reality of a moral instinct in human nature; and as they are better philofophers than to carry it fo far as the advocates for innate ideas formerly did, the arguments they bring, in fupport of the doctrine of moral fentiment, are in fome measure unanfwerable. Our Author would find no little difficulty alfo to prove, that curiofity, or a defire of knowlege, tending to the invention of fpeech and the communicative difpofition of fociety, is not inftinctive, and peculiarly fo to the human fpecies.

Z 2

The

But

ima

But we can eafily account for Mr. Rouffeau's mistakes off this fubject. Philofophers have been long accustomed to caft the primitive state of man, when they fuppofed him unsocial as well as uncivilized, a state of nature. We have no more authority, however, to call civilized man the creature of society, than to call fociety the ftate nature dictated to uncivilized man. It is fomething very ftrange and fingular, neverthelefs, that, after defcribing man in his fuppofed natural state, and placing him on a level in his enjoyments with the brutes, our Author fhould call fuch a state, a state of real happiness, and that of fociety, a state of imaginary eafe." Civilized man (fays Mr. Rouffeau) is a mischievous being; a lamentable and conftant experience makes the proof of it neceffary: Man, however, is naturally good; I think I have demonftrated it what then could have depraved him to fuch a degree, unless the changes that have happened in his conftitution, his improvements, and the lights he has acquired? Let us cry up human fociety as much as we please, it will not be the lefs true that it neceffarily engages men to hate each other in proportion as their interefts clafh; to do each other apparent fervices, and in fact, heap upon each other every ginable mischief. What are we to think of a commerce, in which the intereft of every individual dictates to him maxims diametrically oppofite to thofe, which the intereft of the community recommends to the body of fociety; a commerce, in which every man finds his account in the misfortunes of his neighbour? There is not, perhaps, a fingle man in eafy circumstances, whofe death his greedy heirs, nay and too often his own children, do not fecretly wifh for; not a ship at fea, the lofs of which would not be an agreeable piece of news for fome merchant or another; not a house, which a debtor would not be glad to fee reduced to afhes with all the papers in it; not a nation, which does not rejoice at the miffortunes of its neighbours. It is thus we find our advantage in the difafters of our fellows, and that the lofs of one man almoft always conftitutes the profperity of another. But, what is ftill more dangerous, public calamities are ever the objects of the hopes and expectations of a multitude of private perfons. Some are for ficknefs, others for mortality; these for war, thofe for famine. I have seen monsters of men weep for grief at the appearance of a plentiful feason; and the great and fatal conflagration of London, which coft so many wretches their lives or their fortunes, proved, perhaps, the making of more than ten thoufand perfons. I know that

Montaigne

Montaigne finds fault with Demades the Athenian for having caused a workman to be punished, who, felling his coffins very dear, was a great gainer by the deaths of his fellow citizens: but Montaigne's reafon being, that by the fame rule every man should be punifhed, it is plain that it confirms my argument. Let us therefore look through our frivolous demonftrations of benevolence at what paffes in the inmoft receffes of the heart, and reflect on what must be that state of things, in which men are forced with the fame breath to carefs and curfe each other, and in which they are born, enemies by duty, and knaves by intereft. Perhaps fomebody will object that fociety is fo formed, that every man gains by ferving the reft. It may be fo; but does he not gain ftill more by injuring them? There is no lawful profit but what is greatly exceeded by what may be unlawfully made; and we always gain more by hurting our neighbours than by doing them good. The only objection therefore, that now remains, is the difficulty which malefactors find in fcreening themselves from punishment; and it is to accomplish this, that the powerful employ all their ftrength, and the weak all their cunning.

"Savage man, when he has dined, is at peace with the whole creation, and the friend of all his fellows. Does a difpute fometimes happen about a meal? He feldom comes to blows without having firft compared the difficulty of conquering with that of finding a fupply in fome other place; and, as pride has no fhare in the fquabble, it ends in a few cuffs: the conqueror eats, the conquered retires to feek his fortune elfewhere, and all is quiet again. But with man in fociety the case is quite different; in the first place, neceffaries are to be provided, and then fuperfluities; delicacies follow, and then immenfe riches, and then fubjects, and then flaves. He does not enjoy the least relaxation; what is moft extraordinary, the less natural and preffing are his wants, the more headftrong his paffions become, and what is ftill worse, the greater is his power of fatisfying them; fo that after a long feries of profperity, after having fwallowed up immenfe treasures and ruined thousands, our hero closes the fcene by cutting every throat, till he at laft finds himself fole mafter of an empty univerfe. Such is in miniature the moral table, if not of human affairs, at least of the fecret pretenfions of every civilized heart,"

**We leave our Readers to judge whether this be a fair and impartial representation of human fociety. That many of thofe evils here enumerated may be exemplified among indi

23

viduals,

viduals, cannot be doubted; but the verieft Tyro in morals? and politics, cannot be ignorant of the fallacy of his maxim, that we always gain more by hurting our neighbours than by doing them good." If there were ftill more exceptions. than there are to our old English proverb, Honesty is the best policy, it would yet remain a maxim founded in nature, and established on truth.

Our Author goes on to enumerate the calamities of war, and the ruinous effects of luxury and difeafe; declaiming violently against fociety as the caufe of their production. He hath many reflections on this fubject deserving the notice of the politician, though few worthy the ferious confideration of the philofopher.

The vices of man, in a state of society, are doubtless more flagrant and manifold than they could poffibly be in a state of fimplicity, wherein he ran wild in the woods; but what virtues could he then boaft equal to the focial virtues practifed in a civilized ftate? It is in fociety only we behold the man; in Mr. Rouffeau's ftate of nature, we fee only a mere animal, a brute! And as to happiness, it is abfurd to pretend to it. If favage man hath fewer wants, he hath fewer enjoyments; if he be fubject to fewer diseases, he hath not the fame opportunity of indulging the paffions and appetites of health. What is granted him in the article of pain, is denied him in that of pleasure; and all his pretended fuperiority of virtue and happinefs, confifts in unconscious innocence and ftupid infenfibility.

The inference our Author draws, therefore, from this ingenious piece of declamation, is, in our opinion, unphilofophical and abfurd. It is this; that, fuppofing man a being whole views are confined to this life, a ftate of fociety is unnatural, and he would be happier to live wild among the brutes; and that nothing but religious motives can make fociety eligible, or even fupportable. Now, though we readily and joyfully admit, that the focial difpofition of man, and the faculties he difplays in the midft of fociety, are eminent and convincing proofs of the fuperior deftination of the human species; yet, were it otherwife, and fhould we even admit that man dies like the brute, we cannot be perfuaded he ought, or would be happier, to live fo.

K-n-K

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