ery one favourable to its preservation, an impression of pleasure and of good. By these impressions, sometimes led to shun what is offensive to his senses, and sometimes attracted towards the objects that sooth and gratify them, man became absolutely necessitated to love and preserve his existence. Self-preservation, the desire of personal happiness, and an aversion to pain, are the essential and primary laws that Nature herself creatively imposed upon man, and which the ruling power, whatever it be, has established to direct and govern him; and these laws, like those of motion in the physical world, are the simple and generative principle of every thing that takes place in the moral world.”

Such then is the condition of man: in one view, subjected to the action of the elements around him, he becomes exposed to a variety of inevitable evils; and, if, in this part of her decree, Nature should appear severe, but in other respects just and even indulgent, she has, in another view, not only attempered those evils with proportionable blessings, but has, moreover, given him the power of augmenting the one and diminishing the other; and seems to have said to him,-"Frail work of mine own hands, I owe thee nothing, and I give thee life. The world, in which I place thee, was not made for thee, and yet I grant thee the use of it. Thou shalt find it, a mixture of good and evil-but it rests with thyself alone to distinguish the one from the other; the path is interspersed with flowers and thorns, chuse thy own course. Thou hast

the free and sovereign disposal of thy own lot; I commit the whole of thy destiny to thy sole discretion."- "Yes," continued the Genius, "man is become the ruler and selfconductor of his own fate; it is he himself, that has been the creator of all his various successes and disappointments; and though, on looking back upon the sorrows with which he has been tormenting his life, he should have reason to lament his own personal weakness and folly; yet, when he comes coolly to consider, with what principles he first set out, and to what a degree of elevation they were capable of exalting him, he will probably find much greater cause to pique himself upon his own powers, and to feel contentedly proud in his appropriate portion of natural endowments."

CHAP. VI.

ORIGINAL STATE OF MAN.

MAN at his first origin, being, by his natural formation, naked both in body and mind, found himself thrown by accident, upon a wild and desert earth. An orphan, abandoned by the unknown power that had produced him, he saw no supernatural beings or celestial visitors at hand, that were come to advertise him of wants which he owed merely to his senses, or to inform him of duties, originating solely from those wants. Like other animals, possessing no experience of the past, no anti

cipation of the future, he wandered in the midst of forests, guided and governed simply by his natural affections. By the pain of hunger he was directed to the search of food, and hence he began to provide for his own subsistence; by the inclemencies of the weather he was excited to cover his body, and he accordingly made himself cloathing; by the attractive invitation of a potent pleasure, he approached a fellow being, and perpetuated his species.

Thus, the impressions he received from all ranks of surrounding objects, rousing his faculties to action, developed by degrees the powers of his understanding, and began to remove his profound ignorance. His wants called forth his industry; the perils he ran laid the foundation of his courage: he learned to distinguish the wholesome from the noxious class of plants, to resist and get the victory over the elements, to seize upon his prey, and to defend his life from the danger of attack; and, by this means, alleviated a great portion of his misery.

Thus self-preservation, aversion to pain, and the desire of personal happiness, were the simple and cogent motives, which brought man forth from the savage and barbarous state, in which Nature had placed him; and now that his life is sown with all its various seeds of enjoyment, and he can count every day of it by the comforts it affords, he may justly applaud himself, and triumphantly exclaim, without incurring the censure of egotism: "It is my own self that have produced the blessings

which surround me: I myself am the inventor and operator of my own felicity; secure habitations, commodious raiment, abundant and wholesome provision, smiling valleys, fertile hills, populous empires, ye are all the works of my own hands; and, but for me, the earth had been left in wild disorder, and would now have been no better than an undrained swamp, a rude forest, and a dreary desert!" "Well spoken, man-creator!" continued the Genius, accept the tribute of my homage! "Tis thou, that hast measured the bounds of the heavens, and computed the magnitude of the stars; 'tis thou, that hast drawn the electric lightning from the clouds, extended thy power over the fury of the sea and the tempest, and made the whole of the elements subservient to thy authority! But, ah! how is it, that so many sublime efforts of human genius are so woefully jumbled and intermixed with errors ?"

CHAP. VII.

PRINCIPLES OF SOCIETY.

Now, the first human beings, in the capacity of hunters and fishermen, ranging the woods and borders of rivers in pursuit of game and fish, and seeing themselves almost perpetually beset with dangers, assailed by enemies, tormented by hunger, by reptiles and wild beasts, began to feel, individually, their own weakness in this unconnected and detached

state; and, impelled by a common want and desire of security, and by a reciprocity of sensation and sentiment relative to the evils under which they severally suffered, they united their separate abilities and corporeal strength. Accordingly, when one man chanced to be exposed to danger, a number of the rest assisted and defended him; when one wanted or fell short of provision, another shared with him his prey. Thus, men associated together for the mutual safety of their persons, for the augmentation of their powers, and for the protection of their possessive enjoyments; and love of self thus became the origin and foundation of society..

Afterwards, instructed by the repeated experience of a multiplicity of accidents, by the fatigues of a vagrant and unsettled life, and by the painful anxiety resulting from frequent scarcity, men began to reason with themselves, and said: "Why should we consume our days in search of the scattered fruits which a parsimonious soil affords? Why weary and perplex ourselves in the precarious and doubtful pursuit of prey, that is constantly escaping us both in the woods and the water? Why not assemble under our own care and inspection the animals that we now live upon, and apply our time and attention to the increase and defence of them? They will af ford us a supply of food, we can clothe ourselves with their skins, and we shall thereby live exempt from the fatigues of the day, and the solicitude for the morrow." Accordingly, one aiding another, they seized the nimble