temples of their children, and which secure to them the enjoyment of
some part at least of their natural imbecility and happiness.

Savage man, abandoned by nature to pure instinct, or rather
indemnified for that which has perhaps been denied to him by faculties
capable of immediately supplying the place of it, and of raising him
afterwards a great deal higher, would therefore begin with functions
that were merely animal: to see and to feel would be his first
condition, which he would enjoy in common with other animals. To will
and not to will, to wish and to fear, would be the first, and in a
manner, the only operations of his soul, till new circumstances
occasioned new developments.

Let moralists say what they will, the human understanding is greatly
indebted to the passions, which, on their side, are likewise
universally allowed to be greatly indebted to the human understanding.
It is by the activity of our passions, that our reason improves: we
covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment, and it is
impossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should
take the trouble to reason. The passions, in their turn, owe their
origin to our wants, and their increase to our progress in science;
for we cannot desire or fear anything, but in consequence of the ideas
we have of it, or of the simple impulses of nature; and savage man,
destitute of every species of knowledge, experiences no passions but
those of this last kind; his desires never extend beyond his physical
wants; he knows no goods but food, a female, and rest; he fears no
evil but pain, and hunger; I say pain, and not death; for no animal,
merely as such, will ever know what it is to die, and the knowledge of
death, and of its terrors, is one of the first acquisitions made by
man, in consequence of his deviating from the animal state.