Chap. X. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 147 



undoubtedly are latent in him at the time of his birth, and which do 

 ftill continue fo, in many barbarous nations. This is no other than 

 fecial intercourfe; without which, it is evident, that the human mind 

 would ftill have continued in a ftate very little above that of the brutes. 

 And the more frequent and clofe this intercourfe is, the greater the 

 improvement. Now, we have examples of brutes living, for ages, in 

 the moft ftrld: fociety, fuch as is not only political, but domeftic, and 

 yet exerting nothing like the poiver of the human intelle^. The ani- 

 mal I mean is the beaver, whom I have already mentioned, as one of 

 thofe that come the neareft to the human fagacity. This animal 

 ftill lives, in the manner I have mentioned, in the wilds of America ; 

 and is, I believe, a more antient inhabitant there than any of the Indian 

 tribes ; yet they have formed no ideas, nor invented any fciences, not 

 even arts ; for, though they pradife certain neceffary arts, fuch as 

 that of building their dikes and huts, yet they cannot be called artSy 

 in the proper fenfe of the word, as being founded upon general prin- 

 ciples and theorems ; but are either no more than mere inftind, or at 

 moft, what Ariftotle calls e^^th^/*, that is, experience and objernjatiouy 

 which, no doubt, is the mother of all arts, but is not art^ till it be car- 

 ried the length of principles and theorems *. When, therefore, oppor- 

 tunity and occafion offer, to call forth any latent power in an animal, 

 and yet it is not produced into <7^, we may, I think, conclude, with 

 great certainty, that there is no fuch power in the animal. 



Lajlly^ the beaver, and thofe other animals I mentioned, as coming 

 neareft to man, want, not only the ufe of fpeech, which I am perfuaded 

 man wanted at firft, {perhaps for feveral ages), but the faculty of fpeech, 

 becaufe they have not the proper organs. Now, it is only, as Ariftotle 

 has obfervedt> by converfation, or the intercourfe o^ fpeech, that we 



T 2 learn 



• Ariftot. Metaph. in initio. 

 t Ibidem. 



