Taylor.] '^"t> [Oct. 21, 



of length, and none of those mentioned would conveniently supply liis 

 want. Here he would probably use the foot or the pace, and it would not 

 naturally occur to him to use the same measure, or the same scale of pro- 

 portions and numbers to clothe his body and to mark the distance of his 

 walks. Here, then, is a source of diversity in the standards of linear 

 measure, flowing from the difference of relations between man and physi- 

 cal nature. It would be as inconvenient and unnatural to measure a bow 

 and arrow, for instance (among the first implements of solitary man), by 

 his foot or pace, as to measure the distance of a day's journey, or a morn- 

 ing's walk to the hunting ground, by his arm or hand. These natural 

 standards are never lost to individual man in any stage of society. There 

 are probably few persons living who do not occasionally use their own 

 arms, hands and fingers to measure objects which they handle, and their 

 own pace to measure a distance upon tlie ground. 



The need of measure^ of capacity would not be felt at quite so earlj' a 

 period of man's history as measures of length, yet they would be rendered 

 necessary by the nature of liquids, and for the admeasurement of those 

 substances which nature produces in multitudes too great for numeration, 

 and too minute for linear measure ; of this character are all the grains and 

 seedSj which from lime to time, when man becomes a tiller of the ground, 

 furnish the principal materials of his subsistence. But nature has not 

 furnished him with the means of supplying this want, in his own person, 

 and as his first measures of capacity he would probably employ the egg 

 of a large bird, the shell of a mollusk, or the horn of a beast. The want 

 of a common standard not being yet felt, these measures would be of vari- 

 ous dimensions ; nor is it to be expected that the thought would ever 

 occur to tlie man of nature, of establishing a proportion between the size 

 of his arm and his cup, of graduating his pitcher by the size of his foot, 

 or equalizing its parts by the number of his fingers. The necessity for the 

 use of weights comes still later. It is not essential to the condition or 

 comforts of domestic society. It presupposes the discovery of the prop- 

 erties of the balance ; and originates in the exchanges of traffic after the 

 institution of civil society. It results from the experience that the com- 

 parison of the articles of exchange, which serve for the subsistence or the 

 enjoyment of life, by their relative extension, is not sufficient as a crite- 

 rion of their value. The first use of the balance and weights implies two 

 substances, each of which is the test and standard of the other. It is nat- 

 ural that these substances should be the articles most essential to subsist- 

 ence. They will be borrowed from the harvest and the vintage ; they 

 will be corn and wine. The discovery of the metals, and their extraction 

 from the bowels of the earth, must, in the annals of human nature, be 

 subsequent, but proximate, to the first use of weights ; and when dis- 

 covered, the only mode of ascertaining their definite quantities will soon 

 be perceived to be their weight. That they should themselves immedi- 

 ately become the common standards of exchanges, or otherwise of value 

 and of weights, is perfectly in the order of nature ; but their proportions to 



