earliest date, are to be considered as novelties; and the most common
establishments of human society are to be classed among the encroachments
which fraud, oppression, or a busy invention, have made upon the reign of
nature, by which the chief of our grievances or blessings were equally
withheld.

Among the writers who have attempted to distinguish, in the human
character, its original qualities, and to point out the limits between
nature and art, some have represented mankind in their first condition, as
possessed of mere animal sensibility, without any exercise of the faculties
that render them superior to the brutes, without any political union,
without any means of explaining their sentiments, and even without
possessing any of the apprehensions and passions which the voice and the
gesture are so well fitted to express. Others have made the state of nature
to consist in perpetual wars kindled by competition for dominion and
interest, where every individual had a separate quarrel with his kind, and
where the presence of a fellow creature was the signal of battle.

The desire of laying the foundation of a favourite system, or a fond
expectation, perhaps, that we may be able to penetrate the secrets of
nature, to the very source of existence, have, on this subject, led to many
fruitless inquiries, and given rise to many wild suppositions. Among the
various qualities which mankind possess, we select one or a few particulars
on which to establish a theory, and in framing our account of what man was
in some imaginary state of nature, we overlook what he has always appeared
within the reach of our own observation, and in the records of history.

In every other instance, however, the natural historian thinks himself
obliged to collect facts, not to offer conjectures. When he treats of any
particular species of animals, he supposes that their present dispositions