and instincts are the same which they originally had, and that their
present manner of life is a continuance of their first destination. He
admits, that his knowledge of the material system of the world consists in
a collection of facts, or at most, in general tenets derived from
particular observations and experiments. It is only in what relates to
himself, and in matters the most important and the most easily known, that
he substitutes hypothesis instead of reality, and confounds the provinces
of imagination and reason, of poetry and science.

But without entering any further on questions either in moral or physical
subjects, relating to the manner or to the origin of our knowledge; without
any disparagement to that subtilty which would analyze every sentiment, and
trace every mode of being to its source; it may be safely affirmed, that
the character of man, as he now exists, that the laws of his animal and
intellectual system, on which his happiness now depends, deserve our
principal study; and that general principles relating to this or any other
subject, are useful only so far as they are founded on just observation,
and lead to the knowledge of important consequences, or so far as they
enable us to act with success when we would apply either the intellectual
or the physical powers of nature, to the purposes of human life.

If both the earliest and the latest accounts collected from every quarter
of the earth, represent mankind as assembled in troops and companies; and
the individual always joined by affection to one party, while he is
possibly opposed to another; employed in the exercise of recollection and
foresight; inclined to communicate his own sentiments, and to be made
acquainted with those of others; these facts must be admitted as the
foundation of all our reasoning relative to man. His mixed disposition to
friendship or enmity, his reason, his use of language and articulate
sounds, like the shape and the erect position of his body, are to be