Chap. I. A N T I E N T ^J E T A P H Y S I C Si- 6§'\ 



therefore call the age of a nation its diftance from that State j for what: 

 the birth is to an individual, the formacion into civil fociety is to a 

 nation. And, as it is evident from hiftory, that all nations were not 

 at the fame time in this natural ftate, but fome highly civilized, 

 while others v^^cre perfedly wild, the ages of nations, according to 

 this way of reckoning, are very different : The nations of Europe, 

 for example, are all very young, and may be faid to be of yefter- 

 day, compared with Egypt and fome Afiatic nations, particularly 

 India. 



The reader, if he has patience to accompany me to the end of this 

 Work, will not be furprifed that I have been at fo much pains to 

 prove the exiftcjuce of this Natural State ; for he will fee that my 

 whole Philofophy of Man hangs upon it : And he will be convinced, 

 that it is not from any defign to difgrace and vilify our Species, as 

 fome may fufpe6t, that I have infilled fo much upon it, but becaufe 

 I could not reconcile the milerable ftate in which Men are now 

 to be found in almoil all the nations of the known world, the 

 more miferable the more the nations are civilized, with the admini- 

 jflration of a wife and a good God, otherwife than by fhowing that 

 Man is in this life in a ftate of progrelTion, from the mere Animal to 

 the Intelledual Creature, of greater or lefs perfedion, and a pro- 

 greffion not to end in this life ; from which progrelTion I propofe to 

 fhow that Moral Evil is as neceflary as Phyfical, if the Moral World 

 be a Syftem, as well as the Natural, and confequently both governed by 

 general laws : And, if it be true, as I believe it is, that this fcene of 

 Man is to have an end, as well as the prefent Syftem of Nature, and 

 that Man is to appear again in fome other form, as we are told the 

 Heavens and the Earth will do, it is according to the order of Na- 

 ture that this change of his ftate lliould not happen at once, but 

 ftiould come on by degrees, and, confequently, that the Species 



ihould 



