Dr. Smitn’s Introductory Difcourfe. 3 
the ordinary wants of life, all remove its ordinary inconveniences, 
much in the fame way. 
If on the prefent occafion my principal objeét were to amufe the 
fancy, I fnould dwell long on this early period of the hiftory of the 
human race. The firft probable wants and inventions of man- 
kind; their progreís from a ftate of nature, peace and innocence, 
to one more turbulent and active, but lefs natural and happy; the 
fimple origin of each art and fcience, and efpecially the fource 
of all human knowledge, in the obfervation of nature, with the 
different degrees of cultivation which each fcience may be fuppofed 
to have received according to the various circumftances in which 
mankind have been—all thefe things might form a very amufing 
fubjeét for fpeculation: but as fuch difquifitions muft be chiefly 
guided by the imagination, and after all could be only confidered 
in the light of a romance, I muft not at prefent enter upon them. 
My review of thofe much later periods, although ftill far remote 
from us, in which the progrefs of {cience begins to be marked, 
muft be even more flight than the traces of its footíteps in the page 
of hiftory ; and we fhall eafily confole ourfelves for our ignorance 
of what former ages have thought and known, when we find how 
little real advantage is to be derived from the knowledge of thofe 
much nearer to us. 
In a very early ftate of fociety the fum of human knowledge 
would become too much for every individual to acquire; of courfe 
fome muft neceffarily purfue particular arts or enquiries in pre- 
ference to the reft; and this difference is obfervable not only 
among individuals, but alfo between different nations and bodies of 
men. In infant ftates warlike accomplifhments more than any 
others engage the generality of the citizens, and, becaufe moft evi- 
dently neceffary to the fafety of the whole, are held in the higheft 
efteem. But when external danger is kept at a diftance, the inter- 
B2 nal 
