troduced by fociety among Mankind, it is certainly no impertinent part of the enquiry. It is very true that, in the prefent ftate of things, wealth and power are so much owing to the accidents of birth, favour, caprice, and other adventitious circumftances, that a fuperiority in this refpect is no proof at all of fuperiority in corporeal or mental faculties: but the cafe was otherwise in the earliest ages and the infant ftate of fociety. Superior natural parts, particularly those of the mind, were undoubtedly the frequent, if not the certain, caufe of pre-eminence. It is notoriously fo, at this day, among the favage nations, with whom the strongest arm, the most valiant heart, or the wifeft head, is a fufficient title to honour and command. Nay even in the prefent corrupt and vitiated ftate of great focieties, eminent abilities have their weight; and, if they are not always duly preferred to wealth and power, it is because, however ornamental they might be to high ftations, they are not fo neceffary to fociety in its prefent ftate. There may be times and circumstances in which long-established and flourishing governments will be fo critically fituated, as to require men of the greatest parts and abilities to fave them from utter deftruction; but, in the general course of things among civilized nations, the adminiftration of human affairs requires fewer talents than is commonly imagined. Nay, greater talents in the perfons of such adminiftration would fometimes endanger the peace of fociety, and be apt to throw all into diforder and confufion. Men of great parts are generally enterprizing; and falutary enterprizes feldom offer themfelves, and are not every day to be prudently undertaken. It is the province of men of quick and great parts to project fchemes of government, draw the out-lines, and carry unprecedented defigns into execution. It is that of flow parts, and a mediocrity of talents, to preserve things in their wonted channel, and plod on in that track, which experience, a furer guide than ingenuity, hath long and fafely beaten.

But our Author proceeds" What therefore, is precisely the fubject of this Difcourfe? It is to point out, in the progrefs of things, that moment, when, right taking place of violence, nature became fubject to law; to difplay that chain of furprizing events, in confequence of which the strong submitted to ferve the weak, and the people to purchase imaginary ease at the expence of real happinefs." This is, it is true, precifely the fubject of Mr. Rouffeau's Difcourfe; but it is far from being precifely the fubject laid down in the queftion propofed by the Academy of Dijon. Indeed the 8

whole

whole piece is rather declamatory than argumentative, rather perfuafive than convincing. By the manner in which the Writer's notions of the matter in queftion are explained, does it not seem that he thought a state of violence preceded that of right, and that the former was a state of nature, and the latter of policy? The terms right and law, are here certainly ufed in a political fenfe; and hence we should justly enough infer he must think there was no fuch thing as natural right or natural law: in which case, what could he understand by an Inequality authorized by the law of nature? He goes on actually to cenfure thofe philofophers who have talked of man's natural right, and tells us, "Some of them have not fcrupled to attribute to man, in a state of nature, the ideas of justice and injuftice, without troubling their heads to prove that he really must have had fuch ideas, or even that fuch ideas were useful to him; others have spoken of the natural right of every man to keep what belongs to him, without letting us know what they meant by the word belong; others, without farther ceremony, afcribing to the ftrongest an authority over the weakeft, have immediately ftruck out government, without thinking of the time requifite for men to form any notion of the things fignified by the words Authority and Government. All of them, in fine, conftantly harping on wants, avidity, oppreffion, defires and pride, have transferred to the state of nature ideas picked up in the bosom of society." We do not controvert this. Many philofophers have talked idly, and without due confideration, on these fubjects; but we are afraid Mr. Rouffeau has not much mended the matter in the Differtation before us. If they, as he fays, in speaking of savages have defcribed citizens, he, in speaking of citizens, has defcribed fomething worfe than favages, and hath used the word Nature in as unphilofophical a fenfe and manner, as any of his predeceffors have done any word of equal import in all their writings. He complains that others have perceived the neceffity, in examining the foundations of fociety, of tracing it back to a state of nature, but that not one of them has ever arrived there. Our Readers will judge for themselves whether he recurs farther back, or advances more fatisfactorily, than other Writers may have done, in treating this fubject. "If I confider man (fays he) fuch as he muft have iffued out of the hands of nature, I fee an animal lefs ftrong than fome, and lefs active than others; but, upon the whole, the moft advantageoufly organized of any: I fee him fatisfying the calls of hunger under the first oak, and thofe of thirft at the firft rivulet: I fee him laying himself

down

down to fleep at the foot of the fame tree that afforded him his meal; and behold, this done, all his wants are compleatly fupplied.

"The earth left to its own natural fertility, and covered with immense woods that no hatchet ever disfigured, offers at every step food and shelter to every fpecies of animals. Men, difperfed among them, obferve and imitate their industry, and thus rife to the instinct of beafts; with this advantage, that, whereas every species of beafts is confined to one peculiar inftinct, Man, who perhaps has not any that particularly belongs to him, appropriates to himself thofe of all other animals, and lives equally upon moft of the different aliments which they only divide among themselves; a circumstance which qualifies him to find his fubfiftence with more ease than any of them.

Men, accustomed from their infancy to the inclemency of the weather, and to the rigour of the different feafons; inured to fatigue, and obliged to defend, naked and without arms, their life and their prey against the other wild inhabitants of the foreft, or at least to avoid their fury by flight, acquire a robust and almost unalterable habit of body; the children bringing with them into the world the excellent conftitution of their parents, and ftrengthening it by the fame exercises that first produced it, attain by this means all the vigour that the human frame is capable of. Nature treats them exactly in the fame manner that Sparta treated the children of her citizens; those who come well formed into the world the renders ftrong and robuft, and destroys all the reft; differing in this refpect from our focieties, in which the ftate, by permitting children to become burthenfome to their parents, murders them all without distinction, even in the wombs of their mothers.

"The body, being the only inftrument that favage man is acquainted with, he employs it to different ufes, of which ours, for want of practice, are incapable; and we may thank our industry for the lofs of that ftrength and agility, which neceffity obliges him to acquire. Had he a hatchet, would his hand fo easily fnap off from an oak fo ftout a branch? Had he a fling, would it dart a ftone to fo great a diftance? Had he a ladder, would he run fo nimbly up a tree? Had he a horfe, would he with fuch swiftnefs fhoot along the plain? Give civilized man but time to gather about him all his machines, and no doubt he will be an over-match for the

I

favage;

favage; but if you have a mind to see a contest still more unequal, place them naked and unarmed one oppofite to the other, and you will foon discover the advantage there is in perpetually having all our forces at our difpofal, in being conftantly prepared against all events, and in always carrying ourfelves, as it were, whole and entire about us."

"Hobbes (continues our Author) would have it that man is naturally void of fear, and always intent upon attacking and fighting. An illuftrious philofopher thinks on the contrary; and Cumberland and Puffendorff likewife affirm it, that nothing is more fearful than man, in a state of nature; that he is always in a tremble, and ready to fly at the first motion he perceives, at the first noise that strikes his ears." This, Mr. Rouffeau thinks, may be very true, in regard to objects with which man in fuch a state may not be acquainted; and doubts not of his being terrified at every new fight that' prefents itself, as often as he cannot diftinguish the phyfical good and evil which he may expect from it, nor compare his forces with the dangers he has to encounter." For our own part, we can fubfcribe neither to one opinion nor the other. We fee no reason why man in a ftate of nature, as it is here called, fhould be either fo timid on the one hand, or so fearlefs on the other. Why is every object that presents itself to appear neceffarily in a hoftile or a friendly light? There are doubtless some fights very terrific, and founds as tremendous, from their mechanical effect on our fenfes, fuch as a flash of lightening, or a clap of thunder; fuch the furious look or hideous roaring of fome wild beafts: these may not unreasonably be fuppofed to affect the man with aftonishment and fear, though ignorant of their good or evil confequences. But fhould one favage fee another come fmiling towards him, or behold a strange beaft, of a benign afpect, stalk tamely by; wherefore fhould we fuppofe him inclined either to attack or to fly from fuch objects? We dare fay an Indian, who might be entirely ignorant of the effect of fire-arms, would be no more irritated or afraid, at having a mufket prefented, than if a common walking cane was levelled at him in the fame manner. Mr. Rouffeau indeed conceives that, with respect to familiar objects, man would lose this fuppofed natural timidity. For, living among other animals, without any fociety or fixed habitation, and finding himself under a neceffity of measuring his ftrength with theirs, he foon makes a comparifon between both; and, finding that he furpaffes them more in addrefs, than they furpass him in

Strength,

ftrength, he learns not any longer to be in dread of them. "Turn out a bear, or a wolf, (fays he) against a sturdy, active, resolute savage, provided with ftones and a stick, and you will foon find that the danger is at least equal on both fides; and that after feveral trials of this kind, wild beasts, who are not fond of attacking each other, will not be very fond of attacking man, whom they have found every whit as wild as themselves." Thus our Author intimates it to be a mighty advantage, and a great part of that happiness which man enjoyed in his ftate of nature, and which he is deprived of by fociety, that he could be better able to cope naked with a wild beast than he can now. Another great advantage which Mr. Rouffeau attributes to man in a favage ftate, is an exemption, in a great degree, from fickness, which chiefly attends him in a state of fociety. "In regard to sickness, (fays he) I fhall not repeat the vain and falfe declamations made use of to difcredit medicine by moft men, while they enjoy their health; I shall only ask if there are any folid obfervations from which we may conclude that in those countries, where the healing art is most neglected, the mean duration of man's life is fhorter than in thofe where it is most cultivated? And how is it poffible this fhould be the cafe, if we inflict more difeafes upon ourselves than medicine can supply us with remedies! The extreme Inequalities in the manner of living of the feveral claffes of mankind; the excefs of idleness in fome, and of labour in others; the facility of irritating and fatisfying our fenfuality and our appetites; the too exquifite, and out of the way aliments of the rich, which fill them with fiery juices, and bring on indigeftions; the unwholesome food of the poor, of which even, bad as it is, they very often fall fhort, and the want of which tempts them, every opportunity that offers, to eat greedily and overload their ftomachs; watchings, exceffes of every kind, immoderate transports of all the paffions; fatigues, waste of fpirits; in a word, the numberless pains and anxieties annexed to every condition, and which the mind of man is constantly a prey to; these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making, and that we might have avoided them all by adhering to the fimple, uniform, and folitary way of life, prefcribed to us by nature. Allowing that nature intended we fhould always enjoy good health, I dare almost affirm that a state of reflection is a ftate against nature, and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal.” Thus our Author confiders man as a mere animal, and makes no manner of distinction between the natural fate of the man REV. May, 1762.

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and