Art. L 2> 3. 7* NUTRIENTIA. 1 



a kind of gruel. And the roots of fern, and probably of very 

 many other roots, as of grafs and of clover taken up in winter, 

 might yield nourifhment either by boiling or baking, and fepa- 

 rating the fibres from the pulp by beating them ; or by getting 

 only the flarch from thofe, which poffefs art acrid mucilage, as 

 the white briony. And the alburnum of perhaps all trees, and 

 efpecially of thofe which bleed in fpring, might produce a fac- 

 charine and mucilaginous liquor by boiling it in the winter or 

 fpring. 



7. However the arts of cookery and of grinding may in- 

 creafe or facilitate the nourifhment of mankind, the great fource 

 of it is from agriculture. In the favage date, where men live 

 folely by hunting, I was informed by ; Dr. Franklin, that there 

 was feldom more than one family exifted in a circle of five miles 

 diameter j which in a ftate of pafturage would fupport fome 

 hundred people, and in a ftate of agriculture many thoufands. 

 The art of feeding mankind on fo fmall a grain as wheat, which 

 feems to have been difcovered in Egypt by the immortal name 

 of Ceres, fhewed greater ingenuity than feeding them with the 

 large roots of potatoes, which feem to have been a difcovery of 

 ill-fated Mexico. 



This greater production of food by agriculture than by paftur- 

 age, fhews that a nation nourifhed by animal food will be lefs nu- 

 merous than if nourifhed by vegetable *, and the former will there- 

 fore be liable, if they are engaged in war, to be conquered by 

 the latter, as Abel was flain by Cain. This is perhaps the only 

 valid argument againft inclofing open arable fields. The great 

 production of human nourifhment by agriculture and pafturage 

 evinces the advantage of fociety over the favage ftate ; as the 

 number of mankind becomes increafed a thoufand fold by the 

 arts of agriculture and pafturage ; and their happinefs is proba- 

 bly under good governments improved in as great a proportion, 

 as they become liberated from the hourly fear of beafts of prey, 

 from the daily fear of famine, and of the occafional incurfions 

 of their cannibal neighbours. 



But pafturage cannot exift without property both in the foil, 

 and the herds which it nurtures ; and for the invention of arts, 

 and production of tools necefTary to agriculture, fome muft think, 

 and others labour ; and as the efforts of lbme will be crowned 

 with greater fuccefs than that of others, an inequality of the 

 ranks of fociety muft fucceed ; but this inequality of mankind in 

 the prefent ftate of the world is too great for the purpofes of pro- 

 ducing the greateft quantity of human nourifhment, mid the 

 greateft fum of human happinefs ; there fhould be no flavery at 

 c*ne end of the chain of fociety, and no defpotifm at the other. — 



By 



