considered as so many attributes of his nature: they are to be retained in
his description, as the wing and the paw are in that of the eagle and the
lion, and as different degrees of fierceness, vigilance, timidity, or
speed, have a place in the natural history of different animals.

If the question be put, What the mind of man could perform, when left to
itself, and without the aid of any foreign direction? we are to look for
our answer in the history of mankind. Particular experiments which have
been found so useful in establishing the principles of other sciences,
could probably, on this subject, teach us nothing important, or new: we are
to take the history of every active being from his conduct in the situation
to which he is formed, not from his appearance in any forced or uncommon
condition; a wild man therefore, caught in the woods, where he had always
lived apart from his species, is a singular instance, not a specimen of any
general character. As the anatomy of an eye which had never received the
impressions of light, or that of an ear which had never felt the impulse of
sounds, would probably exhibit defects in the very structure of the organs
themselves, arising from their not being applied to their proper functions;
so any particular case of this sort would only show in what degree the
powers of apprehension and sentiment could exist where they had not been
employed, and what would be the defects and imbecilities of a heart in
which the emotions that arise in society had never been felt.

Mankind are to be taken in groupes, as they, have always subsisted. The
history of the individual is but a detail of the sentiments and the
thoughts he has entertained in the view of his species: and every
experiment relative to this subject should be made with entire societies,
not with single men. We have every reason, however, to believe, that in the
case of such an experiment made, we shall suppose, with a colony of
children transplanted from the nursery, and left to form a society apart,