Chap.VL ANTIENT M ET A PPI YS I CS. 367 



Thofe, who think that religion is natural to man, are in the rio-ht, 

 if they mean that hy nature he is religious, when he has gone 

 through that progrefs by which he becomes truly a man, that is, an 

 animal of intelleft and fcience. But if they m.ean that he is religi- 

 ous in his natural ftate, they either do not know what that ftate 

 is, or Avhat religion is: For, in his natural ftate,. he is a ir.ere ani- 

 mal, diftinguillied only from other animals by his having the capa- 

 city of intelled: and fcience. Now, in that ftate, it is impolTible he 

 can form any idea at all, much lets aa idea fo noble and exalted as 

 that of God. It is for this reafou that Peter the Wild Boy, as I have 

 elfewhere obferved*, had no idea of a God. And not only folitary 

 favages, fuch as he was, have not that idea ; but, after they are af- 

 fociated and come to live in herds, as the Orang-Outang does, they 

 are not able to form that idea. Civil fociety, therefore, is abfolute- 

 ly neceflary for introducing religion among men : And I have fur- 

 ther ftiown "f , that, even in the firft ages of that fociety, men do 

 not form the idea of a God ; for what ideas they then form, are 

 only of corporeal fubftances, and their operations upon them or 

 upon one another, their only care and attention being concerning 

 the necefTities and conveniencies of life. Tiiis, I think, I have prov- 

 ed, in the pafllige referred to, not only by the reafon of the thing, 

 but by fads. And 1 have mentioned two examples, the people of 

 the Pelew Iflands, and thofe of New Zealand, who, though they 

 have the ufe of language, and have made fome progrefs in the ne- 

 ceflary arts of life, yet have no religion. And to thefe two ex- 

 amples may be added a third, the inhabitants of Botany Bay, as I was 

 informed by a gentleman of the name of Walker, who was four 

 years in that country purfer of a man of war 3 and a fourth ex- 

 ample 



* Vol. 3. p. 371. 



t Chap. VI. of Dook II. of this vol. p. 153. 



