If then we are defirous of furveying fociety in its rudeft form, we mutt look, not to the earliest period of its exiftence, but to those diftricts of the globe where external circumstances concur to drive men into a state of ftupidity and wretchednefs. Thus in many places of the happy clime of Afia, which a variety of ancient records concur with the facred writings in reprefenting as the first peopled quarter of the globe, we cannot trace the form of fociety backwards beyond the fhepherd ftate. In that flate indeed the bonds which connect fociety extend not to a wide range of individuals, and men remain for a long period in diftin& families; but yet that state is highly favourable to knowledge, to happiness, and to vir. tue. Again, the torrid and the frozen regions of the earth, though probably peopied at a later period, and by tribes fprung from the same flock with the fhepherds of Afia, have yet exhibited mankind in a much lower ftate. It is in the parched deferts of Africa and the wilds of America that human beings have been found in a condition approaching the neareft to that of the brutes.

We may therefore take a view of the different stages through which philofophers have confidered mankind as advancing, beginning with that of rudeness, though we have shown that it cannot have been the first in the progrefs.

SECT. III. Of the RUDE STATE, or SUPPOSED

FIRST STAGE of SOCIETY.

WHERE the human species are in the loweft and rudelt ftate, their rational and moral powers are very faintly displayed; but their external fenfes are acute, and their bodily organs active and vi. gorous, Hunting and fishing are then their chief employments and only fupport. During that time which is not fpent in thefe purfuits, they are funk in listless indolence. They are roused to active exertion only by the preffure of neceflity or the urgent calls of appetite. Accustomed to endure the feverity of the elements, and but fcantily provided with the means of fubfiftence, they acquire habits of fortitude, which are beheld with aftonishment by those who enjoy the plenty of cultivated life.

But in this state of want and depreffion, when the powers and poffeffions of every individual are fearce fufficient for his own fupport, when even the calls of appetite are repreffed because they cannot always be gratified, and the more refined paflions, which either originate from fuch as are merely animal, or are intimately connected with them, have not yet been felt-in this ftate all the miider affections are unknown; or if the breaft is at all fenfible to their impulfe, it is extremely feeble. Husband and wife, parent and child, brother and brother, are united by the weakeft ties. If we ften to the relations of refpectable travellers, human beings have sometimes been found in that abject ftate where no proper ideas of fubordination, government, or diftinction of ranks, could be formed. No diftinct notions of Deity can be here entertained. Of arts they must be aimoft totally deftitute. They may ufe some instruments for fishing or the chace; but these must be rude and imple. To fhelter them from the inciemen.

BUT human beings have been feldom found in fo rude a ftate as this. Even thofe tribes, which we denominate favage, are for the most part farther removed from mere animal life. They generally appear united under fome fpecies of goverument, exercifing the powers of reafon, capable of morality, though very little refined; difplaying foine degree of focial virtues, and acting under the influence of religious fentiments. Thefe are to be found ftill in the hunting and fishing state; but they are farther advanced towards focial life, and are more fenfible to the impulfe of social affection. By intercourfe in their employments, a few hunters or fishers contract a fondnefs for each other's company, and take fome part in each other's joys and forrows; and when the focial affections thus generated begin to exert themfelves, all the other powers of the mind are called forth, and the circumstances of society are improved. Huts are now built, more commodi. ous clothes are made, instruments for the annoyance of wild beafts and even of enemies are contrived; in short, arts and fciences, and focial or. der, and religious fentiments, and ceremonies, now make their appearance in the rising society.

But though focial order is no longer unknown nor unobferved, yet the form of government is ftill extremely fimple, and its ties are but loose and feeble. It may bear some resemblance to the patriarchal; only all its members are on a more equal footing, and at the fame time lefs closely connected than in the shepherd ftate, to which that form of government feems almoft peculiar. The old men are treated with veneration; but the young are not entirely fubject to them. They may liften refpectfully to their advice; but they do not fubmit to their arbitrary commands. Where mankind are hunters and fishers, where the means of fubfiftence are precariously acquired, and prudent forefight does not prompt to accumulate much provifion for the future, no individual can acquire comparative wealth. As foon as the fon is grown up, he ceafes to be dependent on his father, as well as on the fociety. Difference of experience therefore conftitutes the only distinction between the young and the old; and if the old have experience, the young have ftrength and activity.

Here, then, neither age nor property can give rife to any ftriking diftinétion of ranks. All who have attained to manhood, and are not disabled by deficiency of ftrength or agility, or by the infirmities of old age are on an equal footing; or if any one poffefs a pre-eminence over the reft, he owes it to fuperior addrefs or fortitude. The whole tribe deliberate; the old give their advice; each individual of the affembly receives or rejects it at his pleasure; and the warrior who is most diftinguifhed for ftrength, addrefs, and valour, leads out the youth of the tribe to the chace or against the enemy. War, which in the former ftate did not prevail, now first begins to depopu

late

te the thinly inhabited regions where these huntand fibers pursue their prey. They are scatred in fcanty and separate tribes, over an ime tract of country; but they know no mebetween the affection which brethren of the e tribe bear to each other, and the hatred of eThough thinly scattered over the earth, the hunting parties of different tribes will menes meet as they range the forefts; and ey meet, they will view each other with Katseye; for the fuccefs of the one party in e may cause the other to be unsuccessful; le the one fnatches the prey, the other t return home to all the pangs of famine. Intate hoftility will therefore prevail among the hhouring tribes in the hunting ftate. They at this period fome ideas of fuperior beings. lo practise certain ceremonies to recomnd them to those beings; but both their fenls and ceremonies are fuperftitious and abWe have elsewhere shown (fee POLYTHEISM) Lavage tribes have probably degenerated from pure worthip of the one true God to the adoof a multitude of imaginary divinities. We e traced this idolatrous worship from that of heavenly bodies, through all the gradations demon-worship, hero-worship, and ftatue-worto that wonderful inftance of abfurd fuperthe worship of the vileft reptiles. But we sot that the progrefs of polytheifm has erywhere in the fame order. The chaes and circumftances of nations are fcarce rous and anomalous than thofe of indivia. Among many of the American tribes, ever, among the ancient inhabitants of the s of Germany, whofe manners are fo accuMy delineated by Tacitus, and in fome of the scattered over the southern ocean, religion, and government, have been found in that which we have described as the second stage focial life.

KT. V. Of the PROGRESS of IMPROVEMENT in the THIRD STAGE of SOCIETY.

WE

may now furvey human life as approach. newhat nearer to a civilized and enlightente. As property is acquired, inequality and Bordination of ranks neceflarily follow: and men are no longer equal, the many are foon ed to the will of the few. But what gives to these new phenomena is, that after having en fuffered from the precarioufnefs of the hunt and tifhing ftate, men begin to extend their beyond the prefent moment, and to think ding fome fupply for future wants. When are enabled to provide fuch a fupply, either parfuing the chace with new eagerness and everance, by gathering the spontaneous fruits the earth, or by breeding tame animals-thefe quifitions are at first the property of the whole ciety, and diftributed from a common ftore to ach individual. But as by this mode of diftrition, induftry and activity are treated with inice, while negligence and indolence receive ore than their due, each individual will foon ecome his own fteward, and a community of foods will be abolished. As foon as diftinct ideas

of property are formed, it must be unequally dif tributed; and as soon as property is unequally diftributed, there arifes an inequality of ranks. Here we have the origin of the depreffion of the female fex in rude ages, of the tyrannical authority exercifed by parents over their children, and of flavery. The women cannot difplay the fame perfeverance, activity, or addrefs, as the men in pursuing the chace. They are therefore left at home; and from that moment are no longer equals, but flaves, who muft fubfift by the bounty of the males, and must therefore fubmit with implicit obedience to all their capricious commands. Even before the era of property, the female fex were viewed as inferiors; but till that period they were not reduced to a state of flavery.

In this period of fociety new notions are formed of the relative duties. Men now become citizens, mafters, and fervants; husbands, parents, &c. It is impoffible to enumerate all the various modes of government which take place among. the tribes who have advanced to this ftage; but one thing certain is, the authority of the few over the many is now firit cftablished, and that the rife of property first introduces inequality of ranks. In one place, the community is fubjected to the will of a fingle perfon; in another, power may be lodged in the hands of a number of chiefs; and in a third, every individual may have a voice in creating public officers, and in enacting laws for the support of public order. But as no code of laws is formed during this period, justice is not. very impartially administered, nor are the rights of individuals very faithfully guarded.

This is the age of hero-worthip, and of tutelary gods; for it is in this ftage of fociety that the invention of arts, which gave rife to that worship, contributes moft confpicuously to the public good. War, too, which we confidered as beginning firft to ravage the earth during the former period, and which is another cause of the deification of dead men, will ftill prevail in this age, and be carried on with no lefs ferocity than before, though in a more systematic form. The prevalence of war, and the means by which fubfiftence is procured, must have confiderabie influence on the character and fentiments of focieties and individuals. The hunter and the warrior are characters quite different from the fhepherd and the husbandman. Such, in point of government, arts, and manners, religious and moral fentiments, were feveral of the German tribes defcribed by TACITUS; and the Britons whofe character has been sketched by the pen of Cæfar; fuch, too, were the Roman in the early period of their hiftory; fuch too the Greeks, whom Homer celebrates as the deftroyers of the Trojan ftate: the northern tribes alfo. who poured through Afia, Africa, and Europe, and overthrew the Roman empire, appear to have been of a nearly fimilar character.

In this period of fociety the state of the arts merits attention. The fhepherds and the hunters are in that refpect pretty equal. Whether we examine the records of ancient hiftory, or view the iflands fcattered through the South Sea, or range the wilds of America, or furvey the fnowy wafres of Lapland and the frozen coaft of Greenlandfil we find the ufeful arts in this period, though

known

known and cultivated, in a very rude itate; and the fine arts, or fuch as are cultivated merely to pleafe the fancy or to gratify caprice, difplaying an odd and fantaftic, not a true or natural, tafte; yet this is the period in which eloquence fhines with luftre: all is metaphor or glowing fentiment. Languages are not yet copious; and therefore fpeech is figurative, expreflive, and forcible.

But let us advance a little farther, and contemplate our fpecies in a new light, where they will appear with greater dignity and amiablenefs of character. Let us view them as hufbandmen, artizans and legiflators.

SECT. VI. Of the RAPID PROGRESS of IMPROVE MENT in the FOURTH STAGE of SOCIETY. WHATEVER Circumftances might turn the tention of any people from hunting to agriculture, or caufe the herdfman to ycke his oxen for the eultivation of the ground, certain it is, that this change on the occupation would produce an hapny change on the character and circumstances of men; it would oblige them to exert a more regular and persevering industry. The hunter is like one of those birds that are defcribed as pafling the winter in a torpid ftate. The fhepherd's life is extremely indolent. Neither of thefe is very favourable to refinement. But different is the condition of the hufbandman. His labours fucceed each other in regular rotation through the whole year. Each feafon has its proper employments; he therefore must exert active perfevering induftry; and in this ftate we often find the virtues of rude and polished ages united. This is the period where barbarifm ends and civilization begins. Nations have exifted for ages in the hunting or the fhepherd state, fixed as by a kind of flagnation, without advancing farther. But fearce any inftances occur in the hiftory of mankind of thofe who once reached the ftate of husbandmen, remaining long in that condition without rifing to a more civilized and polished slate. · Where a people turn their attention in any confiderable degree to the objects of agriculture, a diftinction of occupations naturally arifes among them. The hufbandman is fo clofely employed through the feveral feafons of the year in the labours of the field, that he has no longer leifure to exercife all the rude arts known among his countrymen. He has not time to fashion the inftruments of husbandry, to prepare his clothes, to build his houfe, to manufacture houfehold utenfiis, or to tend thofe tame animals which he continues to rear. Thofe different departments therefore now begin to employ different perfons; each of whom dedicates his whole time and attention to his own occupation. The manufacture of cloth is for a confiderable time managed exclufively by the women; but fmiths and joiners arife from among the men. Metals begin to be confidered as valuable mate: rials. The intercourse of mankind is now placed on a new footing. Before, every individual practifed all the arts that were known, as far as was receflary for fupplying himself with the conveniences of life. Now he confines himself to one or to a few of them; and, to obtain a neceffary fupply of the productions of thofe arts which he does not cultivate himself, he gives in exchange a

One of the nobleft changes, which the introd tion of the arts by agriculture produces on form and circumftances of fociety, is the in duction of regular government and laws. In cing the hiftory of ancient nations, we fearce find laws introduced at an earlier period. ros, Solon, and Lycurgus, do not appear to h formed codes of wisdom and juftice for regula: the manners of their countrymen, til after Cretans, Athenians, and Lacedemonians, made fome progress in agriculture and the ni arts.

RELIGION, under all its various forms, ha every stage of fociety a mighty influence on fentiments and conduct of men; and the arts c tivated in fociety have on the other hand fome fluence on the system of religious belief. The male fex in this period generally find the yoke their flavery fomewhat lightened. Men now come eafter in their circumstances; the focial fections affume ftronger influence over the mi plenty, and fecurity, and eafe, at once commu cate both delicacy and keenness to the sensual fires. All thefe circumftances concur to make n relax that tyrannic fway by which they before preffed the fofter fex. The foundation of t empire, where beauty triumphs over both v dom and ftrength, now begins to be laid. S are the effects which history warrants us to at bute to agriculture and the arts; and fuch outlines of the character of that which we reck the fourth ftage in the progrefs of society t rudeness to refinement.

SECT. VII. Of the FIFTH STAGE, or HIGHE

STATE of IMPROVEMENT in SOCIETY. We have not yet furveyed mankind in th mot polifhed and cultivated state. Society rude at the period when the arts firft begin fhow themselves, in comparison of that state which it is raifed by the induftrious cultivation them. Athens and Lacedemon afford us a ha