untaught, and undisciplined, we should only have the same things repeated,
which, in so many different parts of the earth, have been transacted
already. The members of our little society would feed and sleep, would herd
together and play, would have a language of their own, would quarrel and
divide, would be to one another the most important objects of the scene,
and, in the ardour of their friendships and competitions, would overlook
their personal danger, and suspend the care of their self-preservation. Has
not the human race been planted like the colony in question? Who has
directed their course? whose instruction have they heard? or whose example
have they followed?

Nature, therefore, we shall presume, having given to every animal its mode
of existence, its dispositions and manner of life, has dealt equally with
the human race; and the natural historian who would collect the properties
of this species, may fill up every article now as well as he could have
done in any former age. The attainments of the parent do not descend in the
blood of his children, nor is the progress of man to be considered as a
physical mutation of the species. The individual, in every age, has the
same race to run from infancy to manhood, and every infant, or ignorant
person, now, is a model of what man was in his original state. He enters on
his career with advantages peculiar to his age; but his natural talent is
probably the same. The use and application of this talent is changing, and
men continue their works in progression through many ages together: they
build on foundations laid by their ancestors; and in a succession of years,
tend to a perfection in the application of their faculties, to which the
aid of long experience is required, and to which many generations must have
combined their endeavours. We observe the progress they have made; we
distinctly enumerate many of its steps; we can trace them back to a distant
antiquity, of which no record remains, nor any monument is preserved, to
inform us what were the openings of this wonderful scene. The consequence