them, but this only as far as their present and sensible interest
required; for as to foresight they were utter strangers to it, and far
from troubling their heads about a distant futurity, they scarce
thought of the day following. Was a deer to be taken? Every one saw
that to succeed he must faithfully stand to his post; but suppose a
hare to have slipped by within reach of any one of them, it is not to
be doubted but he pursued it without scruple, and when he had seized
his prey never reproached himself with having made his companions miss
theirs.

We may easily conceive that such an intercourse scarce required a more
refined language than that of crows and monkeys, which flock together
almost in the same manner. Inarticulate exclamations, a great many
gestures, and some imitative sounds, must have been for a long time
the universal language of mankind, and by joining to these in every
country some articulate and conventional sounds, of which, as I have
already hinted, it is not very easy to explain the institution, there
arose particular languages, but rude, imperfect, and such nearly as
are to be found at this day among several savage nations. My pen
straightened by the rapidity of time, the abundance of things I have
to say, and the almost insensible progress of the first improvements,
flies like an arrow over numberless ages, for the slower the
succession of events, the quicker I may allow myself to be in relating
them.

At length, these first improvements enabled man to improve at a
greater rate. Industry grew perfect in proportion as the mind became
more enlightened. Men soon ceasing to fall asleep under the first
tree, or take shelter in the first cavern, lit upon some hard and
sharp kinds of stone resembling spades or hatchets, and employed them