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Show 50 MAMMA:LIA. families continue to preserve with their parents those tender rcla· tions to which they have so long been accustomed. This disposi-tion to mutual assistance multiplies to- an almost unlimited extent those advantages previously derived by insulated man from his iJ~ ... telligence; it has assisted him to tame or repulse other animals1 to defend himself from the effects of climate, and thus enabled him to cover the earth with his species. In other respects, man appears to possess nothing resembling in~ stinct no regular habit of industry produced by innate ideas; his knowledge is the result of his sensations and of his observation, or of those of his predecessors. Transmitted by speech; increased by meditation, and applied to his necessities and his enjoyments, they have originated all the arts of life. Language and letters, by preserving acquired knowledge, are a source of indefinite perfection tO' his species. It is thus he has acquired ideas, and made all nature contribute to his wants. There are very different degrees of development, however, in man. The first hordes, compelled to live by fishing and hunting, or on wild fruits, and being obliged to devote all theil· time to search fot· the means of subsistence, and not being able to multiply greatly, because that would have destroyed the game, advanced but slowly. Their arts were limited to the construction of huts and canoes, to covering themselves with skins and the fabrication of arrows and nets. They observed such stars only as directed them in their journeys, and some few natural objects whose properties were of use to them. They domesticated the Dog, simply because he hac). a natural inclination for their own kind of life. When they had succeeded in taming the herbivorous animals, they found in the possession of numerous flocks a never failing source of subsistence, and also some leisure, which they employed in extending the sphe1·e of their acquirements. Some industry was then employed in the construction of dwellings and the making of clothes: the idea of property was admitted, and consequently that of barter, as well as wealth and difference of conditions, those fruitful sources of the noblest emula· tion and the vilest passions: but the necessity of searching for f1·esh pastures, and of obeying the changes of the seasons, still doomed them to a wandering life, and limited their improvement to a very narrow sphere. The multiplication of the human species, and its improvement in the arts and sciences, have only been carried to a high degree since the invention of agriculture and the division of the soil into heredi· tary possessions.. :By means of agriculture, the manual labour of a portion of society is adequate to the maintenance of the whole, and allows the remainder time for less necessary occupations, at the same BIMANA. 51 time that the hope of acquiring, by industry, a comfortable existence for self and posterity, has given a new spring to emulation. The discovery of a representative of property or a circulating medium, by facilitating exchanges and rendering fortunes more independent and susceptible of being increased, has carried this emulation to its highest degree, but by a necessary consequence it has also equally increased the vices of effeminacy and the furies of ambition. The natural propensity to reduce every thing to general principles, and to search for the causes of every phenomenon, has produced reflecting men, in every stage of society, who have added new ideas to those already obtained, nearly all of whom, while knowledge was confined to the few, endeavoured to convert their intellectual superiority into the means of domination, by exaggerating their own merit, and disguising the poverty of their knowledge by the propagation of superstitious ideas. An evil still more irremediable, is the abuse of physical power : now that man only can injure man, he is continually seeking to do so, and is the only animal upon earth that is for ever at war with his own species. Savages fight for a forest, and herdsmen for a pasture, and as often as they can, break in upon the cultivators of the earth to rob them of the fruits of their long and painful labours. Even civilized nations, far from being contented with their blessings, poYr out each other's blood for the prerogatives of pride, or the monopoly of trade. Hence, the necessity for governments to direct the national wars, and to repress or reduce to regular forms the quarrels of individuals. The social condition of man has been restrained, or advanced by circumstances more or less favourable. The glacial climates of the north of both continents, and the impenetrable forests of America are still inhabited by the savage hunter or fisherman. The immense sandy and salt plains of central Asia and Africa are covered with a pastoral people, and innumerable herds. These half civilized hordes assemble at the call of every enthusiastic chief, and rush like a torrent on the cultivated countries that surround them, in which they establish themselves, but to be weakened by luxury, and in their turn to become the prey or others. This is the true cause of that despotism which has always crushed and destroyed the industry of Persia, India, and China. Mild climates, soils naturally irrigated 'and rich in vegetables, are the cradles of agriculture and civilization, and when so situated as to be sheltered from the incursions of barbarians, every species of talent is excited; such were (the first in Europe) Italy and Greece, and such is, at present, nearly all that happy portion of the earth . |